The basic idea is that instead of giving everyone seatbelts that unruly kids won't adjust properly and will use to whack each other's teeth out, you make really high padded seats so that in the case of an accident the passengers go flying into the seat in front of them, but its a relatively short distance and a soft, sturdy landing. The theory is called 'compartmentalization' if you're looking for a google search term. Here's one:

https://canadasafetycouncil.org/child-safety/there-need-seat...

Now, a lot comes into play here - the bus outweighs the pickup by several times, so it has the momentum to absorb the oncoming momentum and keep moving. But it's certainly not like hitting a flying bug. All that energy from the truck headed the opposite direction has to go somewhere, and it slows the bus dramatically in an instant. And these are high schoolers - no matter how many times the driver reminds them to sit down, sit correctly, they just won't. And even after all that, with no one besides the driver in a seatbelt, the students were all OK. (To satisfy curiosity: the driver of the pickup took serious injuries of which none were life-threatening; he spent two days in the hospital. He'd gotten impatient driving behind a tractor/trailer and decided to pass immediately after a curve without checking the lane first. This was a two-lane state "highway" and he was indeed in a zone that allowed passing.)

Then there's the Really Bad Accidents where the bus ends up on its side or upside down. Seatbelts are designed the hold under stress-- the button becomes near-impossible to operate and release. Smaller children will require the assistance of an adult. And there's ONE on the bus. With 50 kids. They make a safe belt cutter that a driver can carry, but now the driver has to visit every seat with multiple belts, cutting kids free, supporting them so they don't fall. This is not a scenario I'd care to have enter reality.

Both of us walked away without a single injury other than the bruises from the seat belt. I've worn them religiously ever since that day.

One of the serious accidents I was in (my grandmother turned a corner very slowly and the other driver was going 130km/h, with a pregnant lady in the passengers seat) did the exact same thing to me. I also got a black eye; apparently right as the accident happened I entered the brace position so quickly I hit my eye socket on my own knee!

The only part that saved my life was that I had stacked a bunch of HP servers right behind the driver seat, the rest of the cabin was completely crushed in ;-)

(Edit: I will never own a 4x4 or any high center of gravity vehicle which doesn't have a roll cage ever again. The day after the accident, I was sitting at the junk yard looking at the mashed ball of metal which used to be my truck, I couldn't believe I walked away without a scratch.)

Also, that was an... odd collision; getting rear-ended usually does not eject the driver out the front nor flip a bus on its side.

In the US from 2003-2012, there were an annual average of 6 fatalities of non-driver occupants of school buses[1].

[1] http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811890.pdf

1) http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/standards/hspps/1310/1310....

http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/faq/faq_pass.shtml#9

http://blog.uber.com/uberfamily

Also:

https://shuddle.us/

Cab drivers here won't drive if you don't put it on.

Seems like a good solution to me.

http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws/seatbelt_laws.html

I treat that as an insult. As if their ego is more important than me not being launched through a fucking windshield.

It's easier than that -- just tell the driver you're not worried about him or her, but about the other drivers on the road.